


The Road Is Made By Walking

by the_rck



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Ethical Dilemmas, Low-key Romance, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prequels Obi-Wan, References to canonical bad things, Sequels Luke, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-16 08:52:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17546510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Eventually, it occurred to Obi-Wan that figuring out Luke's motives might be some sort of test. Simply understanding that it was a test would mean accepting that Luke was a teacher.But, when Obi-Wan addressed Luke as 'Master Luke,' Luke simply shook his head and said, "I'm not a Jedi, and I don't own you."





	The Road Is Made By Walking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).



> Title from Antonio Machado's "Proverbs and Songs #29" as translated by Willis Barnstone.
> 
> Luke is immediately post-The Last Jedi, and Obi-Wan is only hours past having left baby Luke with Owen and Beru.
> 
> The pairing here is more of the 'yes, we're headed that way' sort than of the passionate kisses/declarations sort because neither character is starting from a point where the possibility would immediately occur to them.
> 
> Thanks to Gammarad, Gonqueasel, and Karios for beta reading and to Essie and HopeofDawn for brainstorming help.

Luke had expected to dissolve into the Force when his time was done. He’d started the process with the full knowledge of what would happen. Every moment spent projecting his awareness and image cost a little more of his tie to physical embodiment and a little more of the ties connecting the parts of himself to each other, not just between the atoms and molecules of his body but also between moments of memory. His last thought was that there was irony in how the letting go became so much easier when there were reasons why he might have wanted to stay.

Coalescing, naked, half a meter above the sands of Tatooine came as a shock. As he fell, Luke thought that he should have remembered that the Force might not be only the Light Side and the Dark Side. There was no reason that the Force couldn’t also be a Trickster.

The Force was everything.

Luke knew better than to let himself lie there, in full sun, so he rolled with the fall, rose to his feet, and scrambled for the closest adequate shade. Once he was crouched in the tiny shadow of an outcropping, he scanned the terrain. He wanted to figure out if he recognized the area, if there might be water near, and he needed better cover than he had.

Luke inhaled. He'd gotten soft, and his lungs weren't happy about the sudden drop in humidity. He ignored that because it really wasn't anything he could alter and tested the air for scent. He'd been away from Tatooine for a very long time, but he remembered the slight burn from trace ammonia in the air too well to doubt where he was.

The Force answered, too, adding extra nuance to the odors.

Hot rocks. Sand people, a camp, at least a week ago and over there, not far. Leaking coolant fluid, recent, not more than an hour on the sand, and burning power converters. That way, a little farther but still not far.

He turned toward the smell of coolant and planned his route from shadow to shadow. His feet resented the heat of the ground beneath him. That also wasn't a thing he could alter. Human bodies had never loved Tatooine.

He was certain he was smelling off-world and expensive power converters, a particular brand that no one native to Tatooine would use because the damned things weren't suited to the local heat. A lot of times, generic parts made to work on most worlds failed when they hit places like Tatooine or Hoth, any place similarly extreme. They'd work on planets as hot as Tatooine if they were humid enough and on planets as cold as Hoth that had a different atmospheric mix and pressure.

It was a design tradeoff, and, even on Tatooine, those power converters had probably kept working for hours, more than long enough for the person relying on them to reach deep wasteland.

Luke allowed himself a smile. If someone else was nearby, they might be willing to trade supplies for his help with the necessary repairs. Luke would probably have to talk fast to explain his current state, but-- He'd figure out a story once he knew who needed to swallow it. He'd never been as good a liar as Lando, but he had learned to manage better than Han. Leia generally weaponized truth when she needed to mislead someone.

He missed all of them.

He followed the breeze toward the origin of the burning and found an off-world speeder with most of its guts spread on the sand. A few meters away, he saw a small shelter. He frowned. No, possibly not so small. He thought that it had burrowed under the sand which meant that anyone inside had some insulation against temperature variations. The seal on the shelter didn't look as if it would stand against a sandstorm or do anything at all to hold in moisture, so it probably hadn't been purchased on Tatooine.

Luke stood in the shadow of a rock spire and studied the speeder. It looked less battered than an Old Republic model ought to. Possibly the chassis was some sort of nostalgic re-creation? No. Nobody capable of deploying the shelter as this person-- people? --had would take to the desert in something made for display. Also, the parts on the sand hadn't all been made for the same model. They'd work together just fine under most circumstances, but they hadn't been meant to.

Half the problem was the converters. The other half was that the engines had been cobbled together from bits and pieces that someone had found in an off-planet equivalent to a Jawa jumble bin. Luke probably could have gotten half the lot in trade for one of his aunt's cheeses.

He kept one eye on his surroundings and leaned his forehead against the rock. He was tired. He'd been tired for years. He could turn his back on this, could go back and sit somewhere until Tatooine took him. He _could_. It would be easy.

The Force certainly hadn't put him here to do that, but Luke's unquestioning willingness to trust the Force had vanished when Ben Solo became Kylo Ren-- the same moment when he'd lost his willingness to trust himself.

"Whatever it is," Luke murmured, "I don't want it." He sighed. It wasn't really a choice. He knew the desert, and, however good that shelter was, the person inside might die without Luke's knowledge. Luke could certainly get the speeder running again. Well, probably. It had been a long time since he worked with anything quite that antique. Even if he couldn't, he could find food and, more importantly, water.

Chances were that the person-- or people-- didn't deserve to die just because Luke had been intending to die himself. The Force not having asked permission and not having explained what it wanted didn't mean that Luke would walk away. He couldn't, not and remain who he preferred to be.

Leia would have looked at him and said gently, "There's need, Luke."

He didn't want to disappoint her that way, but he hesitated a moment longer because there just wasn't any plausible explanation for a human wandering, naked, in the deep wastes. He wasn't willing to fake the sort of injuries that would go with him being a slave dumped in the desert to die because, with no clothing, he'd need a lot more reality than just moving as if he were hurt.

Until he met the person who'd come with the speeder, Luke couldn't guess how well Force persuasion might work on them or how long it might last. He gave himself 45 seconds longer then straightened and called, "I'll trade speeder repairs for clothes." He let the accent of back country moisture farmers, the accent his aunt and uncle had worked so hard to leave behind, into the words. 

His listener might not recognize it, might not understand that the shape of Luke's vowels carried a promise of knowledge about how to survive Tatooine. They also might. Some people researched planets before visiting.

"You must've brought that speeder from off-world," Luke added. "Nobody on the planet would've sold it to you with the Verigean power converters."

"Possibly," said a masculine voice from behind Luke, "they just wanted to murder me." He didn't sound as if he thought that was the case, more as if he was in the habit of suggesting additional interpretations to people who needed to learn to do it themselves.

Luke snorted and turned slowly toward the voice. "And waste a speeder? One that works is worth a hell of a lot more than parts and scrap. This is Tatooine. Anybody wants you dead, a knife in the back or a blaster bolt are enough. Unless you've got friends who can afford to bear witness." He'd recognized the voice, so seeing Ben Kenobi wasn't entirely a surprise, but Luke had forgotten that Ben had once been younger.

Travel through time as well as space, then. Several decades backward. This was a Master Kenobi who didn't know the desert.

Luke studied Ben for a moment, not letting his recognition show. "I'm Luke," he said. "Luke Bluesun." It was close enough to Aunt Beru's family name not to feel utterly alien and not to be out of place on Tatooine. Luke wasn't an uncommon name, here or elsewhere in the galaxy. No one would assume a connection between Luke Bluesun and Luke Skywalker.

Ben-- no. Obi-wan. Luke mustn't forget there was a difference-- frowned. He looked more puzzled than worried, but he also had the twitchy alertness that comes with a dose of adrenaline right when a person thought they could finally sleep. His face looked puffy, and there were dark circles under his eyes. His beard was longer than it should be and uneven in a way that, in Luke's experience, was a sign of neglect.

Obi-Wan was using the Force to hold himself upright.

Luke pretended not to notice that because he didn't like the blaster in Obi-Wan's hand and suspected that Obi-Wan was days, rather than decades, removed from active combat. Luke probably could take Obi-Wan down if he had to, but they'd both get hurt. Luke had lost his combat reflexes, had let them go because they weren't likely to help him in the sort of conflict he'd expected when he'd retreated from the galaxy. 

Obi-Wan was all edges. If Obi-Wan weren't drawing on the Force, both his hands would be shaking. He stood four meters away from Luke and had his other hand hidden in his robe.

Luke suspected there was a lightsaber under the cloth, so he spread his hands wide. "No hidden weapons," he said. "No hidden anything." Nothing physical anyway. Luke touched the Force as delicately as he could. He wasn't sure if Jedi had secret recognition signals.

He also wasn't sure he wanted this desperate looking man to know that he was-- had once been-- a Jedi. After feeling the way that Obi-Wan's presence in the Force jittered and vibrated like a poorly constructed jackhammer, Luke pulled his awareness back. He could wait; Obi-Wan was running on fumes.

Obi-Wan's lips twitched in something that wasn't quite amusement. "Which isn't remotely suspicious at all." There was something in his voice and posture that told Luke of loss and bitterness and of a shadow of anger that left Obi-Wan's grasp on the Light Side more than a little tenuous.

Luke supposed that explained why the other man had decided to let Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen raise Anakin Skywalker's son. This moment had to be shortly after Obi-Wan arrived on Tatooine.

Luke really hoped that his baby self wasn't inside that shelter. He wasn't big on babies, and he wasn't sure if him interacting with-- He didn't even have words for a person that was him and at the same time wasn't. It might not even be safe.

Luke let his arms fall to his sides. He didn't move otherwise. Then, very deliberately, he tilted his head to one side. "The sort of suspicious that merits murder?" he asked softly. "Or the sort of suspicious that merits further study?" He probably wouldn't fight if Obi-Wan decided to kill him. Luke had accepted death already today.

But then Obi-Wan might die. Then Luke would never meet-- never have met-- Ben. Would that be better? Would killing now push Obi-Wan over the edge to the Dark Side? Obi-Wan might not fall if everything remained calm, if Luke didn't push him. 

Obi-Wan hadn't fallen. Therefore, Luke _hadn't_ pushed him. Luke had met him, later. Therefore, Obi-Wan had survived to become the hermit known as Old Ben.

Unless... Could Luke change things or was this encounter already part of the unalterable fabric of reality? If it was fixed, how could anyone have any choices ever?

Should he even try to change things? There were certainly things in his history that he wished had gone differently, but those things had made him, had certainly rippled in ways that altered other lives, both for good and ill. He didn't know what changing things would do to those people.

But that was part of the point of life, wasn't it? A person never knew what all of the repercussions would be, what all the risks were. It wasn't dropping a pebble into a still pool; it was an infinite number of pebbles falling on rapidly moving water. The effects of each depended on other things that that one pebble didn't control or influence.

Obi-Wan lowered his blaster, but his other hand remained hidden. "I have little extra clothing. Most of it will... draw attention." His voice sounded tighter than it had, more obviously exhausted.

Luke took a few seconds to realize that Obi-Wan meant that the clothing was too obviously Jedi. Luke didn't know enough about fashion in the late Republic to know whether or not Obi-Wan was right. People on Tatooine wore what they could get. Luke raised his eyebrows and looked around. "If it will draw attention here, I assume that someone's woven in trackers. In which case, my wearing it-- or not-- will change nothing." He was very sure they weren't in a place where anyone was likely to wander by.

Which definitely made Luke's presence more suspicious. 

This time, Obi-Wan's expression came closer to a smile. "Sweat activated trackers, I'm sure."

It had taken years for Luke to realize that Old Ben had any sense of humor at all. He wondered if Obi-Wan had lost it during his years as a hermit. Luke had found his own sense of humor after he had given up on the Jedi.

Luke shifted uncomfortably. The man in front of him was going to spend nearly two decades clinging to things that Luke knew weren't ever coming back. Luke hoped his discomfort could be taken as embarrassment at his nakedness. Then it occurred to him that, if Obi-Wan thought Luke uncomfortable about being naked, Obi-Wan would remember to wonder how it had happened. If Luke just habitually walked the wastes in the altogether, it would require less explanation.

A lot of things could be explained by consistent eccentricity.

Obi-Wan studied Luke's face as if he was trying to see Luke's thoughts and intentions.

Luke supposed that he was. "I have an unfair advantage," he told his first teacher. He knew that Obi-Wan wouldn't understand what Luke meant, but he felt he had to say it anyway, just to be fair. "I have heard of you through friends. I trust people who trust you."

Obi-Wan frowned. He shook his head, just a few millimeters in either direction, as if he was trying to make his eyes see something other than what lay before him. "I don't know you." He sounded a little uncertain.

Luke allowed himself the barest wisp of a smile. "Not yet." He shrugged. "You don't have to. I could leave you here alone." He could. He even might if Obi-Wan asked it.

Then the Jawas would take the speeder and the tent. They'd leave Obi-Wan to the desert because ownership of 'found objects' was much tidier if previous claimants got eaten.

Obi-Wan frowned. He wasn't going to be able to remain upright much longer. The Force was infinite; the human will was not. "You would, wouldn't you? Just walk away if I told you to, I mean."

Possibly the Force would let Obi-Wan collapse simply so that Luke had to stay. Possibly it was a favor for a favor. Possibly...

Possibly it was a gift.

"Always in motion, the future is, but a few predictions possible are." Luke told Obi-Wan. Fair was fair. "When you fall over, I'm dragging you to your shelter, stealing some clothes, and figuring out what we'll eat after you wake up." He twitched both hands, drawing attention to the fact that they were empty. "But, yes, if you tell me to go and then get yourself back inside on your own, I will go." He was almost certain that Obi-Wan didn't want to be alone.

Obi-Wan would survive it-- if Tatooine didn't kill him before he learned the desert's ways-- and make peace with it, but he didn't want it.

Luke wasn't sure he liked seeing his teacher as such a clear mirror.

"Why?" Obi-Wan didn't sound like the question was really for Luke.

Luke moved rapidly as Obi-Wan's knees started to give. Luke hoped he wasn't going to get a lightsaber in the gut. That would be a nasty way to die. "I've been where you are," he said as he caught Obi-Wan. "Close enough, anyway."

Obi-Wan remained deadweight as Luke dragged him to the entrance to the shelter. Luke suspected that the other man was not only low on sleep but had also misjudged how much water he needed.

And... Obi-Wan had recently lost everything. The real wonder was that he had still had enough focus to banter.

Being inside gave some relief from the heat and the brightness. Luke remembered the sensation from his childhood, but he'd thought that nostalgia and youth had embellished the sensation. He suspected that he'd similarly lost his sense of how much relief some hint of warmth had given him on Hoth. He hadn't really thought that his body had realized how close death pressed beside him.

Luke spent much of the next two hours trying to get enough water into Obi-Wan that the other man wouldn't wake up with a raging headache. After that, he got dressed and inventoried Obi-Wan's possessions so that he'd know how dire their situation was. Obi-Wan's general gear seemed to be aimed at long term survival on some more-- or differently-- hospitable planet than Tatooine. Obi-Wan's desert gear... It would have been sufficient for a day trip, possibly even for a few days. It just wasn't anything like what Luke would have chosen.

Obi-Wan had probably told the people he'd bought it from that wasn't going more than an hour out from Mos Eisley. He'd probably also gone to a place that catered to people who thought there was something mystical and picturesque about heat and stone and sand, people with more money than sense.

Finding the travel records and maps and confirming that they were only just off of the Lars' land came as an immense relief.

Uncle Owen might not have liked Old Ben, but going by the date on the records, Uncle Owen wouldn't have had time to start worrying that Obi-Wan would steal Luke. Obi-Wan would still be, at worst, a stranger in need. No Lars would turn away a stranger dying of thirst. 

Uncle Owen might even view Obi-Wan as kin. Under local custom, there was as much argument to be made for Anakin's mentor being Uncle Owen's kin as for Anakin's child being Uncle Owen's kin.

Luke had done his mourning for Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru decades before, but his heart still twisted a little at the realization of how much they'd opened their hearts to him. He hadn't ever understood as a child that some people wouldn't have.

Luke and Obi-Wan weren't going to have to impose on Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Luke knew more or less where to find water now that he had a clearer idea of where they were. Knowing that they could fall back on family was still an immense comfort.

****

Afterward, Obi-Wan couldn't have explained Luke Bluesun's continuing presence in his life. Not from any angle. Obi-Wan ought to have found a place to live in isolation. Luke ought to have-- Well, he didn't appear to have friends or family, so maybe him staying made sense, maybe there wasn't anything else he needed to do.

Obi-Wan thought he remembered Luke having been naked when they first met, but he was decidedly uncertain that anything he remembered between setting out for Tatooine and waking up in the desert with Luke's bearded face looking down at him had actually happened.

Well, he was pretty sure that the part about babies being hard work was entirely accurate

"I'd say it's not your fault," Luke had said," but a part of it-- not much but still part-- is. Also, no reason my opinion should matter to you."

Obi-Wan had been too exhausted and ill to register that Luke knew more than he ought to. Later, Obi-Wan had hesitated to ask what Luke knew and how. Asking would require admitting that the fall of the Republic had occurred because Obi-Wan had failed as a teacher. 

Obi-Wan still didn't want confirmation that Luke knew those details. Obi-Wan had gotten a lot of hints during the last few weeks and suspected that Luke was doing it deliberately.

Obi-Wan focused on more basic things, things he could define clearly with lines between done right and done wrong. He and Luke both needed food and water at regular intervals. They needed shelter that wouldn't collapse in the face of a sandstorm. They needed supplies which required hard currency which required concrete steps. Each bit needed his full attention.

Any time Obi-Wan found himself facing impossible choices or found himself unable to start a task, Luke nudged him, verbally, using techniques that Obi-Wan recognized but preferred not to acknowledge.

Pedagogy with a Jedi seasoning.

Luke really did know the desert. He knew the cycles of the suns and moons well enough not to need to look up details. He knew that water from the Levrith Well had too much sulfur for humans to drink it unfiltered and that, because of that same sulfur, the Sand People preferred to go there for their water. He could name the steadings within two hundred kilometers of where they were creating a home and explain how the families who owned those steadings connected to each other and how they disagreed about property lines.

These were all things Obi-Wan needed to know in order to survive. He'd probably have figured most of them out, but the possibility that he might not have bothered to try circled his thoughts like a scavenging bird waiting for its prey to stop moving.

Every time Obi-Wan started to slow, started to allow memories of dead children and dead friends to surface, Luke was there with a task or a question about something else entirely. Every night, Luke talked Obi-Wan through a routine that Obi-Wan didn't recognize as meditative or as touching the Force until they'd done it half a dozen times. At that point, Obi-Wan couldn't quite make himself care.

Luke could have destroyed him. If Luke had intended to, he'd already had opportunity. What Luke actually wanted, why Luke was helping Obi-Wan, wasn't at all clear.

Eventually, it occurred to Obi-Wan that figuring out Luke's motives might be some sort of test. Simply understanding that it was a test would mean accepting that Luke was a teacher.

But, when Obi-Wan addressed Luke as 'Master Luke,' Luke simply shook his head and said, "I'm not a Jedi, and I don't own you."

"Then, why?" Obi-Wan hadn't realized that he wanted to know, and even now, he wasn't quite sure of the scope of his question.

"I'm here. You're here," Luke replied. "I could help someone else somewhere else, but I'd have to go there first." He smiled a little. "Neither of us are going anywhere but the Lars Homestead until we get that speeder fixed."

Obi-Wan didn't believe the part about the speeder, not entirely. He turned the facts over in his head and still couldn't make them come together. He thought he'd have done better if he really cared. "I have a task," he said.

"I know." Luke turned away and looked out over the baking sands. He started to open his mouth then closed it and shook his head.

"It's important," Obi-Wan said. The knowledge that infant Luke needed Obi-Wan had been all that had kept him focused before this Luke came. "I would have managed for that."

"I know," Luke said again. "Having a... reason to manage is important. It is only that..." He shrugged then glanced sidelong at Obi-Wan. "My opinion on the subject doesn't matter."

Obi-Wan didn't answer for several seconds. "It matters if you're staying." The shelter they'd planned had space for two. At least, it did by Jedi standards.

"Ah." 

Now, Obi-Wan supposed, it was Luke's turn to delay answering. Obi-Wan pulled out his water and drank two carefully metered mouthfuls. He hadn't ever before appreciated living in places and having tools that made water an easy thing. He understood that aspect of his Padawan now.

Thinking of Anakin was still like prodding a physical wound, one that had just barely not been lethal.

Obi-Wan tried to breathe steadily around the pain. He knew it was entirely psychosomatic. He knew he needed to accept the loss. The losses.

So very much destroyed.

"Would you like me to stay?" Luke sounded indifferent and looked relaxed, but, even across the meter that separated them, Obi-Wan could feel sharpened attention.

When was the last time what Obi-Wan wanted had mattered? "I--" He shook his head. He wasn't sure that it should matter now. His judgment probably hadn't gotten better.

Luke stood. "No rush." He paused then added, "There's enough shade now that we can go back to work on the wall."

Obi-Wan spent the next two days thinking about all the reasons he should say no.

After dinner the second day, Luke said, "Not being attached is not the same thing as being alone, or... It shouldn't be. Not unless solitude is a thing that you choose for reasons that build something."

Obi-Wan dropped the bowl that he had been scrubbing with sand.

Luke's smile was a little crooked. He bent and picked up the bowl, handing it back to Obi-Wan. "This seemed like a better time to talk about it than tomorrow, after you have another sleepless night. I didn't mean to push you."

Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"I didn't mean to push you _yet_ ," Luke said. "You will probably need pushing eventually, but I'm not sure it should come from me. I don't-- I don't understand your priorities." He studied Obi-Wan's face for a moment. "My war didn't damage me the same way that yours did you, so I don't know how those wounds feel. The betrayal by... by someone I taught and all the close-in death from that, yes, but not the war. My sister would know the war part of things better, but she'd also tell you what to do next.

"I can't tell you that. Nobody should tell you that." Luke sighed and looked at his hands. He opened and closed the right one twice. Then he picked up the tub of dirty sand they'd used for cleaning and turned away. "I act on impulse, and I hesitate. Sometimes, I'm right. Sometimes, I'm wrong. It's harder to remember the times I was right, but they're all things I can't change, not after the moment passes. I did or I did not. One or the other."

That was Master speaking to Master, not Master speaking to Padawan. Obi-Wan heard the difference as clearly as he heard Master Yoda's perpetual admonishment. _There is no 'try.'_ The myriad choices of the future narrowed to the action of the present and then collapsed into the unity of the past.

"Doing nothing can be the right choice, but... It's not a shortcut for avoiding ever being wrong again." Luke walked away to dump the sand. Luke had insisted that their midden be far enough from where they camped that scavengers probably wouldn't use it as a path to their supplies, so he was gone awhile, longer than the distance merited but not by much. 

When he came back he didn't elaborate on what he'd said, and Obi-Wan wasn't ready to ask.

****

Luke hadn't meant to say so much, not so soon and possibly not ever, and he was a little disturbed to realize that he'd said it, at that moment, because he, himself, needed to hear it and to think about what it meant. He'd let himself focus on the problems directly in front of him in order to avoid looking at anything larger. 

Luke hadn't made any choices yet that couldn't be swallowed by the interstitial spaces of the timeline he'd known.

Luke Skywalker could very easily have missed hearing that Old Ben had once had a-- What was Luke Bluesun to Obi-Wan? That was another set of decisions. It might not matter for the timeline, but it mattered for Obi-Wan Kenobi and for Luke Bluesun.

Luke was enough older than Obi-Wan that his grave might well have been a thing that his younger self had walked past and simply hadn't noticed. If the timeline were a closing loop.

Luke didn't think it had be a closed loop. He thought he and Obi-Wan could choose to let it be, but that wouldn't remove the responsibility that went with it being a choice. Every life accumulated might-have-beens. A person usually didn't know whether a particular moment's might-have-beens would be motes of dust on the surface of swiftly moving water or a scattering of pebbles or one really damned big rock. The not-knowing didn't change the results-- good and bad, always both, just in different degrees-- didn't lighten the weight of consequences.

And no choice-- or string of choices-- ended happily for everyone. If Alderaan wasn't destroyed, some other planet might be, or the Rebellion might fail. Certainly, some people would never be born while others, who hadn't existed in Luke's timeline, would be. Luke could spend every moment he had worrying about the potential he destroyed just by drawing each breath, but...

By the time Tatooine's suns died, none of those things would matter.

The real question, Luke supposed, was whether or not Obi-Wan was ever going to be healed enough to live in a universe without a singular Right Path, whether or not Obi-Wan could understand the idea, let alone accept it.

No. The question was whether or not Luke Bluesun could open himself enough to risk Obi-Wan's rejection. Luke hadn't realized that he had missed human interactions until Rey came, and Rey had been-- 

She had been so very young that Luke had felt older than Yoda.

Luke was older than this Obi-Wan, but he didn't feel the difference in experience as the same sort of chasm between them. Obi-Wan had just had his world shatter in ways that were like what Luke had faced. Completely unlike, too. Ben had been much younger than Anakin, and Luke's school had been miniscule compared to the Jedi Order.

But neither Obi-Wan nor Luke had realized that their students needed a different path. There were, potentially, so very many, but the Jedi had told Obi-Wan-- and Obi-Wan still believed-- that there were only the Jedi and the Fallen.

Luke wanted to stay with Obi-Wan if Obi-Wan would have him, but Obi-Wan was only just getting to the point when it could be a choice. If Luke never pushed, Obi-Wan would never even consider that Luke's presence might be less an inevitable part of life on Tatooine than the sand or the cycles of the suns.

They had the shell of a dwelling and the basics of a water transport system before Luke repaired the speeder. He could have done it sooner, but he'd been worried that Obi-Wan wasn't ready for the stress and unpredictability of Tosche Station. Leaving Obi-Wan alone with uncertainty about when, or if, Luke would come back.

Luke hadn't been able to think of any benefits to risking it, not in the short term. They weren't eating well, but they weren't going hungry. The limiting factor on their isolation was power for their tools and their lights and their water filtration. Solar power was the go-to on Tatooine, but Luke's improvised collectors weren't going to last more than a few weeks.

Luke just thought that 'it's too far to walk, and the speeder is broken' was believable as an alternative to making Obi-Wan acknowledge that he was still fragile and potentially dangerous to people who weren't Luke.

And Obi-Wan being fragile gave Luke an excuse to delay making any decisions.

As Obi-Wan repaired their water filtration device for the third time, he glanced at Luke, hesitated, then said, "You could have fixed the speeder by now."

"Yes." It hadn't been a question, but Luke thought it required an answer. "I haven't given it priority."

Obi-Wan returned his gaze to what his hands were doing. "For my sake or for yours?"

Part of Luke wanted to find something else to do, something that would derail the conversation, but if Obi-Wan was asking, he was probably ready for answers. "For both of us," Luke said after a few seconds of silence. "You needed to know Tatooine before you decided to stay or-- if you do stay-- whether you'll be better here or in Tosche Station. I know you won't go farther than Tosche, not if you're staying. I--" He shook his head. After a moment, he said, "I needed to decide whether or not to let you decide."

Luke was pretty sure that Obi-Wan wouldn't understand the selfishness of that without an explanation. Luke shook his head. "You also need to-- I also need to-- Every step either of us takes-- or doesn't-- will ripple through the future. I don't know whether or not you'd have survived without me, so I've already-- possibly-- interfered with your destiny." He managed something approaching a laugh. "Maybe you were meant to be eaten by narlaks because you drank bad water."

Obi-Wan looked like he didn't understand and like he thought Luke expected him to figure it out. Apparently Obi-Wan still wanted Luke to be a wise and enigmatic Jedi Master.

Luke really wished he could poke Obi-Wan with a blade of grass in order to puncture his assumptions. It hadn't quite worked on Rey, but Obi-Wan had a very different perspective than the girl from Jakku had had. "It's not a riddle," Luke said. "Not that sort of riddle, anyway. It's not the sound of one hand clapping, and it's not a puzzle to be solved." He hesitated. "I'm sure there's an answer; it's just not a set of equations or a pun or..." He shrugged.

There really wasn't a good way to say this sort of thing.

"A few weeks ago," Luke told Obi-Wan, "you and Yoda and Bail Organa had to decide what to do with me and my twin sister, Leia."

Obi-Wan's sudden stillness was more than physical. It felt more as if the other man had pulled all the kinetic energy out of the air around them than simply that Obi-Wan had stopped moving. Then the moment shattered as Obi-Wan made a sound that was more rejection than disbelief.

Luke shook his head. "I know how one set of choices ends, one where I'm not here or, at least, no longer with you the day my younger self meets you." Not even a name had been there. "I never heard of you having a companion, either, and I don't know if me staying changes anything. The moment and the choices are a gift." He studied Obi-Wan's face and was nearly certain that the other man didn't understand the full weight of that. "Any step I take, any step you take, might change the events as I know them. There isn't a happy ending because there isn't an _ending_." He waved a hand left. "A step that way, and someone doesn't die the day or the way that I remember, but... other things change, too. Maybe all in good ways. Maybe all in bad ways. Probably in both directions." He made a broad, sweeping gesture with his right arm. "Which way to step isn't a binary choice. Even standing still changes things." Luke stood and turned away. "I'm going hunting. I think we could use some protein tonight."

Luke glanced back as he left and was pretty sure, based on the expression on Obi-Wan's face, that Obi-Wan understood the implicit 'giving you time to think' part of what Luke was doing.

****

Obi-Wan finished re-assembling the water filter. Focusing on the fiddly bits of that let him avoid considering Luke's revelations and whether or not they had been true. Obi-Wan didn't question that Luke believed it all. 

As Obi-Wan covered the mechanism to keep dust and sand from bypassing the filter, he realized that he'd been spending a lot of his time not-thinking about things.

Having asked Luke about the speeder-- Obi-Wan should have done that weeks ago. He should have visited Owen and Beru Lars to see how Anakin's son was settling in. Watching over the family required actually paying attention and having a way to get there if he was needed.

That baby-- That baby could not be the same person as Luke Bluesun. Obi-Wan had held that baby. He'd fed and bathed the infant. He knew that such tiny creatures became younglings who then became adults, but that knowledge crumbled to nothing next to the sensory memory of cradling Anakin's son and the solid reality of Luke Bluesun. The latter had never been a baby. The former would never be... so old.

Obi-Wan's mind flinched as it occurred to him that that level of certainty might well transform itself from expectation to intention. A protector who assumed that a child wouldn't grow could warp the child's development. There was a reason that Force-sensitive children, at least those who might one day become Padawans, spent their formative years in the controlled environment of the Temple creche.

Anakin hadn't, and Anakin had--

Obi-Wan stopped his mind from looking at everything Anakin had done.

Luke Bluesun-- _Skywalker_ \-- had grown up to be a Jedi Master who had chosen to be kind when Obi-Wan had been helpless. He was strong and compassionate and reliable. He was and wasn't the baby Obi-Wan had brought to Tatooine. He was because he wouldn't lie about it. He wasn't because--

Oh. It wasn't just that Luke Bluesun represented a safe haven after all of the loss and death. It was that Luke Bluesun was a person whose judgment Obi-Wan could-- did-- trust and who was-- Obi-Wan hadn't thought that he had any space left for his heart to want to attach to anyone. He'd thought that the part of himself that could find other beings physically attractive had died with the Order. 

Luke Bluesun could certainly have used that attraction without Obi-Wan even noticing it as manipulation.

Obi-Wan didn't only have to choose what to do; he had to choose whether or not to do it with Luke and at what... level of intimacy. Obi-Wan had been expecting that Jedi Master Kenobi wouldn't exist except in the spaces required for teaching Anakin's son to be a Jedi. There would have been a lot of empty time in that, and he'd somehow thought that having no plans for it meant not having to traverse it, second by second, not having to do anything or choose anything.

Luke Bluesun had denied being a Jedi. Was that a thing that future Obi-Wan had caused or allowed or--?

Was a Jedi a Jedi without the Order? Could a person learn to be a Jedi in isolation? The creche was gone. Luke Skywalker couldn't grow up there. If there had been a better option than Obi-Wan taking the baby, surely Master Yoda would have--

Master Yoda was not all-knowing. Never had been. Never had claimed to be. Master Yoda had wanted Obi-Wan to live.

Obi-Wan wasn't all-knowing either, and Luke had explicitly denied certainty about the future. Obi-Wan wondered if Luke would stay. Obi-Wan wondered if they both might go. He didn't know what choices had shaped the man who'd saved his life. If they changed those, would Luke Bluesun die? Vanish? Never have existed?

Even if they tried to avoid changes, one or the other of them might die, certainly would eventually. There were never any moments when death wasn't possible. Only the Force was eternal. 

Obi-Wan and Luke only had the ever-changing present.

They had most of a house on Tatooine. They could stay. Obi-Wan could focus himself, centering himself in the Force, to forget and let go of what was happening elsewhere. There'd be peace in that, and Obi-Wan was tired.

But he also might simply make himself more tired because, the longer he looked away, the harder it was going to be to acknowledge the existence of all of the things he was choosing not to do. He wanted peace, wanted it desperately, but he thought that what he really wanted, more than peace, was hope.

Hope could come from sitting and watching a baby grow, but Obi-Wan was starting to wonder if it could come from watching a baby grow while expecting the child to somehow... Expecting Luke Skywalker to grow up to make everything better was a terrible burden to put on him.

The Jedi Order had lasted because the members had stood together, because no one person had had to do everything. The War, everything with Anakin, had been about separating them from each other and from any outside support.

Obi-Wan had questions about the future. Obi-Wan had decisions to make. He thought Luke would help him.


End file.
